HURTS WHEN I: ONLY WHEN I RUN. Nothing else. Really. I walk, jump, squat, etc. …and it’s FINE. I jog for 3 minutes on a treadmill and it hurts. Go flippin’ figure.

HURTS SORT OF WHEN I: <see above>

DOESN’T HURT WHEN I: <again. see above.>

TREATMENT:

1) Ice. Ice ice ice. The frostbitten patch on my knee is now hardened and keratinized and all funky-feeling. It’s kind of cool.

2) Mad Men.

3) Obsessive thesis work.

4) Calling an orthopedist to get this crap taken care of.

4.5) …which necessitated a call to the nice people at United Healthcare. Shirley explained to me my benefits, because understanding and seeking health care is one of those “adult” things I’m not yet able to do, along with doing taxes, going on a date with a man who doesn’t just annoy the sheer hell out of me, and going a full day at work without saying something mildly inappropriate but ridiculously funny, which is how I justify it when a word like “boobies” comes flying out of my mouth in professional company.

5) Education. I showed you all a helpful diagram yesterday, but The Bear sent me a more comprehensive knee illustration to better show me how to treat my condition:

We are awed, The Bear.

…so I need to put ice on the boner, so it doesn’t keep grinding on the boner, which is also going to cause some pain, naturally, to the boner when it bends against the boner. I get it now!

Seriously, this is all really depressing. I think I’m taking a few days off from even thinking about it.

So. I missed a day of posting. I blame an ice-, Stairmaster-, endorphin-withdrawal-, and yoga-induced stupor. But we HAVE gotten to a point where the pain is COMPLETELY gone! POW! The only issue is still a slight “click” when I bend and straighten it beyond a certain angle. Can I still run on this? No pain but weird noises? <uncomfortable fidgeting>

Runner's knee is worse if your kneecap is blue, you know.

….yes?

….YES. Yes.

At left is a scientific diagram of the body of a runner’s-knee-afflicted individual. This visual aid is to assist you, so that you can more easily and educated-ly give me medical advice.

Well, here’s hoping it’s all good. Tomorrow I plan to do a measly half an hour on the treadmill, just to reinforce to myself that it’s allll fixed. My workout today consisted of running around the house as much as possible, as well as lots of hops on my left foot, all of it “just to make sure.” I’m probably annoying the bejeezus outof ol’ Smoky McIncense downstairs, but then again, he’s probably like waaaay too mellow to get up and bitch about it.

Seriously, though, I’ve been feeling bazonkers for these past 8 days of convalescence. Not to get too drama-queen, but I’ve been experiencing a sort of minor identity crisis, forced to consider what on earth I would do if I didn’t have running to do for exercise/stress-relief. Stairmasters don’t go anywhere, lifting isn’t sweat-intensive enough, and the instructor on last night’s Netflix yoga video told me “not to open your flower’s petals before it blossoms!”

Somehow I suddenly — in the room alone, mind you — had the urge to cover my vag.

“You’ll break the petals!” he said.

“PERVERT!” I yelled at the MacBook.

I guess the issue here is that I never realized how much I really really love/depend on running. I mean, I’m not engrossed enough in my job or school to let those things take over my life, and I don’t have a husband or child to eat away at my time (not that I’m complaining). Running has really been it for such a long time. And there is only ONE EPISODE OF 30 ROCK PER WEEK to watch on Hulu! Not enough to sustain me, kids. I also have found myself, in my withdrawal-crazed internet browsing sessions, considering the possibility of a 50-miler. Really. Because that’s not at all insane.

<headdesk>

So. Dear readers. Pray/do a forbidden dance/meditate/send some vibes my way so that I can have my goddamn life back.

Writing in the usual template depresses me. And we need a new one for my current situation anyway.

INJURY DURATION: 5

PAIN LOCATION: Left kneecap region

PAIN ON A SCALE OF 1-10: 3, but nagging.

OTHER SYMPTOMS: Slight clicking when I bend and straighten it, though maybe that was always there. Also ennui, anger, remorse, shame, nausea.

HURTS WHEN I: Walk down stairs, sit with it bent for long periods of time, run, jog to campus in my high heels to jam one of said heels into the eye of a certain grad school advisor, think about how much I miss running <whimper, sob> and probably brought this on myself.

HURTS SORT OF WHEN I: Elliptical, stationary bike.

DOESN’T HURT WHEN I: Walk, sit with it straightened, jam a high heel into a professor’s eye, bake cookies.

Once upon a time, there was a little puppy who was happy and all was well in his world. His name was Slappy, and he jumped and played and ran and laughed ahahaha all day long because he was able to jump and play and run and laugh and nothing bad (in the grand scheme of things) happened to him, aside from the occasional bureaucratic snafu at his graduate school, but that was all OK, because do you know how Slappy dealt with these minor life frustrations? He would jump and run and play and laugh and not at all feel like stabbing something.

And then Slappy got an overuse injury in his cute little left puppy knee because he was just too damn happy with all his frolicking and too damn good at it, really…

…and suddenly the darkness overcame him. He did not jump and run and play and laugh, because to do so hurt his puppy soul, not to mention his puppy cartilage. So Slappy began riding the flippin’ exercise bike at the gym, which only put him in a worse mood because it DOESN’T GO ANYWHERE and DIDN’T ALLOW HIM TO FEEL THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING BREEZE ON HIS FURRY LITTLE PUPPY FACE and soon he collapsed in a fit of puppy tears.

Slappy began hanging with the wrong crowd. He spent all his money on puppy booze and puppy hookers and furthermore developed a $50-per-week Osteo Bi-Flex habit.

And then one day it seemed that Slappy was going to hit bottom and that all the praying and barking and yapping and kicking and swearing were never going to work and that he ought to just end it all with some laced Alpo, but then he decided he had a CHOICE, dammit!

And so, high as a kite on painkillers and glucosamine and some sort of holistic powder from the hunchbacked warty lady from that smelly store down in Georgetown, he traveled to the Underworld, paddled across the River of Patellofemoral Pain, and thrust his sword into the heart of the Necromancer.

Which did no good, so Slappy went home and after a few weeks everything got better, with the help of him icing the living bejeezus out of his knee while getting his belly scratched by gorgeous men.

Wait. Did I just make Slappy gay? I suppose I did. But in the sense that we’re conflating him with me here (if you were an English major you’d get this subtlety), maybe s/he’s not. It involves a lot of math. I’ll explain it to you when you’re older.